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Sucrose, fructose and glucose sugars

Words by Simon Difford

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Bog standard cane sugar, the type we use in our tea and coffee is sucrose. When this is heated with water it breaks down into fructose and glucose through a process called hydrolysis to produce what's known as inverted sugar.

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Bakers prefer inverted sugar as products made using it tend to retain more moisture and are less prone to crystallization. But what is good in the kitchen is not good behind the bar.

Sucrose-based sugar syrup is the most viscous but if overheated during the syrup-making process then some of this viscosity will be lost as the sucrose hydrolyses into less viscous fructose and glucose. Fructose is the least viscous sugar with glucose slightly more viscous than fructose, but sucrose is almost twice as viscous as glucose.

While hydrolysing sucrose into fructose and glucose results in less viscosity it has the opposite effect on sweetness with a 50/50 sucrose and glucose syrup being around 25% sweeter than 100% sucrose syrup. (Glucose is about 75% of the sweetness of sucrose but Fructose is nearly twice as sweet as sucrose.)

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  1. Tuber Magnatum's AvatarTuber Magnatum
    2 years ago
    Simon, if it's the "... quest for viscosity and mouthfeel ...", would this be satisfied by making a gomme syrup? I ask because when just now making a 2:1 gomme syrup, I accidentally let it come to a boil, albeit only briefly! I'm hoping the decreased mouthful of the resulting fructose/glucose will be compensated for by the added mouthfeel of the gomme and that the increased sweetness will not be too much of an issue.
  2. Cocktailpixie   's AvatarCocktailpixie
    3 years ago
    Simon, I am hesitating to mention this typo because I'm enjoying it so much, but just how violent is the "most vicious" sugar syrup in the second to last paragraph…?!
    1. Simon Difford's AvatarSimon Difford
      3 years ago
      Thanks for letting me know. Now I've corrected Grammarly is prompting me to change it back.
  3. Ben Hymers's AvatarBen Hymers
    3 years ago
    Is mouthfeel the reason to prefer sucrose? If the whole point of sugar syrup is to add sweetness, then making glucose/fructose syrup instead of sucrose syrup seems like it would be a better idea - unless that viscosity is more important?
    1. Simon Difford's AvatarSimon Difford
      3 years ago
      It's the quest for viscosity and mouthfeel that makes sucrose desirable.